Ash Sarkar just No Platformed a pro-Brexit trade unionist

The middle-class left gets more ridiculous by the day. Today, Novara Media’s Ash Sarkar announced she has pulled out of speaking at an upcoming People’s Assembly demo, apparently because she couldn’t bear to share a platform with pro-Brexit trade unionist Eddie Dempsey.

I can’t speak for Owen. But I was invited to speak at a demo by a mate, and said yes before I saw the speakers list.

I pulled out of speaking at the demo next week. It’s not a no platform – the organisers can invite who they want – but sharing this one isn’t for me. https://t.co/nEgHl7zFfg

Dempsey’s inclusion on the line-up has angered left Remainers, largely because of his support for No Deal, and they have called on Sarkar and others to pull out in protest.

Others have re-aired MP Clive Lewis’s ludicrous claim that Dempsey is a racist – purely because Dempsey once suggested in a speech that the liberal left had driven some people to support the far right.

So there we have it. Bourgeois ‘leftists’ have No Platformed a working-class trade unionist. All because he supports Brexit. There could be no better example of how detached these people are from real radical politics and working-class interests.

Hugh Bryant

Someone ought to point out to Ash Sarkar that, in many cultures, long fingernails, indicating their wearer’s unfamiliarity with any kind of manual work, are signifiers of great wealth.

cliff resnick

31st August 2019 at 10:33 am

“No Platforming” is an excuse (a mechanism) for extreme left wing intolerance, kind’a ironic, me thinks! Can’t win the argument then shut down the discourse.

cliff resnick

31st August 2019 at 10:39 am

misread this is not a case of “No Platforming” just “inverted intolerance”!

Neil Davenport

30th August 2019 at 6:09 pm

A lot of comments currently doing the rounds that refusing to share a platform with a speaker is not classified as No Platform. In its original framework, No Platform can mean refusing to allow a ‘fascist’ speaker on a public platform, individuals or representatives refusing to share a public platform with a ‘fascist’ or physically breaking up a public meeting of ‘fascists’. Sarkar and Owen have chosen the second option. It is still a form of No Platform.

Ian Wilson

30th August 2019 at 5:16 pm

Don’t any of these people actually have a job, a family and things to do? Far too much free time, do some volunteering and get a perspective on life.

Ven Oods

30th August 2019 at 5:02 pm

Hardly ‘no platformed’.

Perhaps lone-platformed?

It does rather suggest that these people haven’t got a handle on how debate works.

Ah well… I shan’t miss hearing either of them speak.

James Knight

30th August 2019 at 4:47 pm

Snowflakes don’t want to hear anyone outside their own echo chamber. Their bubble could burst.

And if you listen to Owen Jones latest output, that bubble has been inflated to unprecedented dimensions.

jessica christon

30th August 2019 at 4:26 pm

It’s not a “no platform”, he wasn’t disinvited. This isn’t bad, as it just highlights the ID left’s disdain for the working class and unwillingness to countenance any views they don’t agree with.

steve moxon

30th August 2019 at 3:59 pm

Nobody knows or cares who is this ‘intersectional’ box-ticked journo, nor the outfit she works for.

Warren Alexander

30th August 2019 at 3:55 pm

It is quite absurd to expect these delicate flowers to share a platform with someone who holds different views to their own. They might get upset or , heaven forfend, offended.

John Reic

30th August 2019 at 2:33 pm

Wasnt Eddie , accused of anti Semitism , because he said Soros financially , was taking a interest in brexit,
Nothing to do with his Jewishness , if Israel
The people who accused him of that while defending
The anti Semitic left
Were the same ones who said Paul Embery was anti Semitic, because he said about rootless metropolitans which Stalin once said about some Jews.
It’s pathetic that these middle class people like Ash Sarkar and Owen Jones pretend to be working class and genuine working class people and play the victim card when they’re the ones trying to stop democracy by saying those who support democracy are fascists who should be no platformed .

Bronk’s Funeral

30th August 2019 at 1:51 pm

So not attending a thing is no-platforming now? Huh. The event is still going forward, and Eddie Dempsey is still invited, right? The platform is still a thing?

So your complaint is what, exactly? That Owen Jones *won’t* be there? Does Owen Jones not being there delegitimise it for you, or something? Properly absurd.